


Mother of Morality

by TrappingLightningBugs



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Blood and Gore, Dirty Talk, Drug Use, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hallucinations, M/M, Murder, Physical Abuse, Smut, Suicide, this list of tags looks like I'm an edgy 13 y/o
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 10:07:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9175825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrappingLightningBugs/pseuds/TrappingLightningBugs
Summary: If Joonmyeon's life was a pencil drawing of a monster, Lu Han was the slash of a red pen right across its throat.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written [here](http://sncj-santa.livejournal.com/113435.html) for Sonyeoncheonji Secret Santa 2016.

The first time Joonmyeon found his cave, he had fallen into it, badly scraping his knees on the rough stone. 

His mother had started screaming at his father—not like that was new—but that day his dad had a little less alcohol than usual, and had risen up to meet her. 

At the first smack of skin on skin, Joonmyeon had fled, needing to get away from them and the violence that his house held, needing to get away from people that cared more about the safety of their routine, rather than solutions to their problems. They lived at the base of the Namsan mountain, and that meant people everywhere at all times of the year. If he wanted to get away from people, he had to go off the path. 

The incline didn’t bother him; but it seemed more people were trying to be active that night, and he couldn’t stand the eyes on him. Adults would give him the same condescending look once they noticed the tear stains on his cheeks. Boys shouldn’t cry, boys shouldn’t air their dirty laundry in public, but there he was, there he was. 

Tearing off of the path, he made his way across the mountain side, nearly falling more than a few times, though the surging sensation of adrenaline took the edge off of his helplessness. In that state, he felt like he could fly away from everything, like wings would come bursting out of his back to carry him into the night. 

Sometimes Joonmyeon wished so badly to fly that he lost sight of the world around him; that time, he could have teetered forward and fallen down a steep incline, or back into the rock. He had just enough mind to go back, but not enough understanding to process what happened when he kept falling. 

The cave had been an unintentional blessing, once he realized he hadn’t broken anything. 

He started going there daily after school, claiming he had club activities, friends that wanted him to spend time with them, though his parents doubted that he wasn’t wasting his bus pass money on something stupid. 

“Joonmyeon, if I find out you’re lying to me, you won’t be leaving the house until you’re thirty,” his mother would say, and even though she never caught him in his vague lies, she did start loading his bus pass herself. 

Her lack of trust in him burned with humiliation. It was all too clear to Joonmyeon how much his mother regretted marrying his father, regretted settling down when she had never wanted a child or a housewife position. Every tense, hunched over position he ever found her in reeked of resentment so foul it had his eyes burning. His mother was less of an oasis and more of the troll that lived under a bridge, dragging others into her misery if they dared step too close. 

On days when her looks burned through him, he took risks and stole from convenience stores far from his home, running away so he wouldn’t use his bus pass. 

Over time, the cave became a home, housing a few pillows, some of his favorite comics, a torch, and a sketchpad that one of his favorite teachers had gifted to him the previous year. 

“You have a talent. It would be a shame if it went to waste,” the teacher had said, and Joonmyeon cradled the book to himself like a baby. He had hidden it the best that he could, so afraid that his mother would find it and scold him. 

In his cave, he didn’t have to worry about anything, because even if she saw him head up the mountain, she would never be able to follow him down the precarious path to his cave. While he was in the cave, he was safe from his own disappointment and the pressures of a future that didn’t want him. 

\-- 

The first time Joonmyeon found the boy in his cave, he’d nearly peed himself. 

He had come in one crisp fall day, a bit irritated from a bad fall he had nearly taken while on the slick leaves, and he hadn’t seen the form crouched toward the back. 

When the figure shifted, his eyes were drawn to the form of another boy, about his age, seated on one of his pillows, flipping through his sketchbook. 

“Hey!” He snapped, voice raw with nerves and surprised anger. “Who are you? What are you doing in here?” 

The boy didn’t look up, just continuing to flip slowly through the used pages, appraising an image he’d made with hard strokes of a 9B pencil showcasing a mouth filled with sharp teeth and tentacles, framed by a pair of kindly, bespectacled eyes. 

“These are good,” the boy said instead, raising his head to meet Joonmyeon’s eyes. Joonmyeon braced himself for mockery or cruelty, shiny in a person’s eyes like twin marbles, but the boy’s eyes were steady, almost too serious for the confrontation that Joonmyeon felt crackling in the air. “Why do you keep this here where the damp could get to it?” 

Joonmyeon didn’t bother to answer; the book was normally stashed inside a gallon ziplock bag to keep out water, so he knew the boy already knew the answer. He sensed the deeper question, but he sidestepped it, going over to the rockier side of the cave to draw a baseball bat out of the shadows. 

“What are you doing in here?” Joonmyeon repeated, fighting to keep his voice from cracking, hefting the bat so it smacked his own palm with a satisfyingly heavy sound. 

The boy’s eyes followed the motion of the bat, his face still expressionless. “I see you coming up here. I wanted to know why.” 

Joonmyeon snorted in disbelief. “So rather than approaching me down there, you come to my cave? And you wouldn’t know where it was if you weren’t following me—” 

His sketchbook closed with a loud clap and the boy stood, confirming Joonmyeon’s thoughts about his height, and he walked over, dark eyes boring into Joonmyeon’s own with an intensity that no one usually gave him. 

He saw whirlpools, dead leaves caught in twin cyclones of brown. His own reflection, in the center. 

“The leaves and mud had foot prints. I saw you go off trail more than a few times, and it wasn’t hard to follow your tracks,” the boy answered simply. “I wanted to know…” 

“Yeah?” 

The boy shook his head. “If you were thinking about jumping, and just kept chickening out.” 

Joonmyeon’s mouth fell open. “Excuse me?” 

“You’re telling me you’re completely happy with your life? That you don’t run up the mountain as if your life depended on it?” The boy stared at him, something harder entering his expression. “You’d be lying.” 

“We’re not friends!” Joonmyeon found himself yelling before he could stop himself, and he lifted the bat. “You have no right to talk to me like this!” 

His vision went red, the helplessness that had always consumed him at home overwhelming him unfairly in his safe space, and he swung the bat. Joonmyeon felt it connect hard with the boy’s face, sending him crumpling to the floor. 

\-- 

After a few seconds of sheer panic where Joonmyeon had thought he might have killed the stranger, he watched the boy try to stand up. He had frozen, watching the shape that might have ceased being human, watching his skull bubble under his skin like it wanted to ooze out through the spot he had damaged. Then he realized the boy was moving, and Joomyeon instantly ran over to him when the boy lifted his head. 

“Shit, shit,” he babbled, “I’m so fucking sorry.” 

Thankfully, the boy hadn’t fallen unconscious, but there was blood dripping from his lips, a red bruise already appearing on his white skin. 

The boy looked up, and his eyes had a bit more life in them, shedding the horrible scenes for mud pits, curious and sucking. “Are you? I came in here and threatened you. Are you really sorry you hit me?” 

“I am,” Joonmyeon replied instantly, unable to tear his gaze from the blood that ran down the boy’s chin. 

The boy nodded, seeming satisfied, then rose to his feet using the cave wall for support. “Alright.” 

He left without telling Joonmyeon his name, but a few days later, he found the stranger sitting on the pile of pillows, a blanket Joonmyeon had never seen before wrapped around his shoulders. 

“Where’d you get that?” He blinked, not thinking to inquire why the stranger came again. 

Glancing up, the boy pocketed his phone and shrugged. “Brought it. Figured it would be nice when the weather starts getting cold.” 

Joonmyeon frowned, startled by the mottled bruise that spread down the stranger’s cheek like camouflage paint. “Why are you here? I don’t want you here.” 

The boy looked to the side, and Joonmyeon thought for a moment, he yet to see him smile, didn’t know his name. 

“Tell me your name,” he demanded, “Or I’ll hit you again.” 

A small flicker of something darted across the boy’s lips, and he answered, “It’s Lu Han.” 

“Chinese.” 

“Yeah, couldn’t you tell?” Bitterness came through clearly then, making Joonmyeon’s chest ache. He knew that sound, knew the feeling it stemmed from, and suddenly he only saw his mother screaming at his dad. 

Moving to walk past him, he answered, “I don’t care that much. Chinese, Korean, what does any of it really matter?” Joonmyeon stooped down to a small crevice in the rock, drawing out a bottle of ginger ale. 

He held it out to Lu Han, who just studied him for a long moment, his expression harsh, nearly making the other cringe back. 

“It matters.” His voice came out bitingly sharp. “It matters, and you should remember that.” 

Lu Han snatched the bottle out of his hand and took a long swig, eyebrows bunching together with desperation, almost like he was pretending it was alcohol. Joonmyeon kind of wanted to hug him, but he reminded himself that he knew nothing about the other. 

“Alright,” he agreed softly, going to settle next to Lu Han. “You’re Chinese. And your accent is pretty.” 

“So you did know.” Lu Han’s accusing eyes pinned him down, and Joonmyeon felt like he couldn’t breathe for a moment. “Idiot.” 

Tears nearly welled up in his eyes, and Lu Han seemed to see that, his expression growing incredulous, before it settled into something gentler. 

Wordlessly, he reached out and brushed away the first stray tear that raced down Joonmyeon’s cheek, his finger calloused and so, so warm. 

\-- 

It became a tradition for them; Joonmyeon wouldn’t see Lu Han every day he visited the cave, but he would see him at least twice a week. They both brought stuff from home to fill the caves, Joonmyeon still stealing, though neither of them talked more about why their things weren’t missed. 

At one point, they even hung a heavy curtain in front of the entrance, blocking out the cold wind, and Lu Han proclaimed, “Now you really never have a reason to leave.” 

Joonmyeon had blushed, frowned at the teasing, then immediately calmed down when Lu Han shifted forward to touch him, fingers skimming over his wrist and dancing down his pulse like he could draw in his own way, too. Their relationship seemed uneasy even in its comfort, the detachment from Joonmyeon’s regular life unlike anything else beyond his parents screaming versus indifferent public faces. Just like that, Lu Han didn’t seem to be something that existed in the real world. The boy played him like a violin, coaxing cohesiveness out of discordant strings. 

Until about two months into their friendship, when Joonmyeon’s mother stormed out on him, announcing that she was going to stay with her mother for a while. Joonmyeon thought he would go—after all, even if he reminded her of his father, he was her baby—but she didn’t want to take him out of school. It became his job to make dinner for him and his father, to keep the house clean. Going up to the mountain became just a dream, and the longer he spent in his house, blinds drawn at all times so the neighbors couldn’t see, the more Joonmyeon started thinking about what Lu Han had said to him when they first met, trying to ignore the violent, vibrating shadows that choked his home. 

Was sticking around really worth it? 

His mother finally returned around a week later, and immediately ripped into his father for the state of the house. Amazingly, his father blamed him, and the screaming was matched on both sides. 

Joonmyeon felt like he was going to be sick; he didn’t even make it to the cave that day, collapsing on the frozen, muddy path, not thinking about how his mother would bemoan how he dirtied his coat, only wishing he could do anything, feel anything besides disappointment to others. His house bled and bled, but it wouldn’t stick to him even if he wanted it to. It would drown him before he could even touch it. 

Cold swaddled him tightly, like a mother trying to suffocate her baby in the chase toward warmth, and he thought he might fall asleep like that. If he died on the mountain, he could become a spirit and keep others like him safe. He could rain vengeance down on those that were obsessed with the shallow world, punish those that wanted to break others. 

“I want to kill them all,” he hissed, not realizing that the cold had abated, that his head had been settled into someone’s lap. 

“Shh,” the voice coaxed, “You need to stand up. I’ll get you to the cave, but you need to stand up.” 

His emotions swirled wildly inside him, and while Joonmyeon had never been drunk before, at that moment the world tottered around him like it only seemed to during his worst fevers. Anger gave way to despair as he heaved himself upward, feeling the leaves in his hair with a sense of detached loss, the arm around his waist thin, like a toothpick, nothing that could protect him—but the body that pressed into his was warm and sturdy. 

“Joonmyeon,” the voice came out sharper. “We’re going to walk now.” 

Nodding slowly, he struggled to obey, steps slow and firm over the slick ground, his swirling vision attempting to focus on the path. Slipping and falling to his death wouldn’t be the end he would choose for himself in any scenario, so he would watch, and the figure at his side stayed steady, quiet. 

He knew who he would see if he turned his head to the side, but he somehow preferred to imagine that some nature spirit had come for him, that some greater power saw that he had a reason to keep existing. 

When the cave came into view, they brushed through the curtain and into the warm space, the heat almost overwhelming them, as the blanket tacked up kept the cold air out. Joonmyeon stumbled toward the pillows, going to curl up on the pile of them, uncaring that he was dirtying them. 

Footsteps sounded on the floor, coming to rest by his head, and he stared at a pair of stick thin legs, eyes clouding over as he refused to blink, before the person crouched down. 

“You can stay here as long as you need,” Lu Han promised. “You’re safe here.” 

Joonmyeon felt laughter bubble up in his chest; what a joke. Could people truly be safe anywhere? 

Then there was a hand carding through his hair, and the tears that wouldn’t come before beaded at the corners of his eyes, the comforting touch of another speaking to a small part of him that rarely surfaced looking for gratification. Sometimes it felt like he couldn’t do much beyond complain, discouraged enough not to ask for change, but aware enough to know that his life shouldn’t be like it was. 

Lu Han stayed there for what felt like hours, his hand switching the way he pet him every now and again, but otherwise he did not move. As far as Joonmyeon could see, the boy almost didn’t appear to blink, and he didn’t know what the other’s home life was like, but he wondered, for a moment, how he spent so much time with him without worrying his caretakers. 

Eventually sleep tugged at him, and he let it overtake him. When he woke up later that night, Lu Han had left him a bag of McDonalds and a note promising that he would return after school the next day. 

Joonmyeon found his sketch pad shortly after he wolfed down his dinner, grease marks staining the parchment as he sketched a mutated wood nymph with drooling acid spit, and Lu Han’s eyes hidden beyond large, frightening compound ones. 

\-- 

He was embarrassed to admit that he went to school normally, after retreating home in the middle of the night, creeping slowly enough to avoid waking either of his parents, though it looked like his mother had stayed up waiting for him. Or she might have been sleeping in the armchair to avoid sharing a bed with his father. Either way, he was able to make it into his room without incident. Sadly, that meant he couldn’t shower, because that would wake her, so he rubbed off the mud on his skin to the best of his ability, then crawled into bed, falling into an uneasy, light sleep. 

Joonmyeon dreamed of a snow covered mountain, except the farther he walked, the further the peak appeared, the snow under his boots turning to rotted flesh, his feet breaking through the membrane to the ripe, horrible scent underneath, the warm liquid streaming over his feet, something beyond blood and feces, and when he finally looked down to settle the battle, he saw a pair of angry eyes lurking beneath the sludge. 

He jerked awake to more screaming, Joonmyeon’s eyes feeling dry and scratchy, like he hadn’t actually slept a wink, but he came awake at just the right moment. His bedroom door slammed open, and his father came in, demanding, “Where have you been?” 

Blinking the remaining sleep out of his eyes, he rose to a sitting position, croaking out, “I was sleeping,” but he knew that was the wrong answer the second it left his lips. 

His father surged forward, rage blazing in his eyes, and Joonmyeon found himself cowering as his mother yelled in the background. 

“Before that, you little shit.” He growled, and Joonmyeon took back every time he wished for a different father; now he would give anything to have back his passive alcoholic who never yelled back, never even raised a hand at his angriest. 

“I was up at the park!” He yelled, “I hate listening to you two!” 

Watching his father hesitate, he jumped out of bed and ran past his mother, who had frozen in his doorway. Joonmyeon had his explanation ready if someone yelled after him, but neither of them did, both going at each other in his bedroom, as he locked himself in the shower, biting back his tears until the stream started going hard enough. He couldn’t stay in there forever, though, and he drew back sooner than he would like to go put on a clean uniform. 

Joonmyeon nearly got out of the house without further incident, but right as he went to put his shoes on, his father lumbered up to him. He tensed at first, but when he said his name in a rather calm tone, he hoped that maybe he thought things over and wouldn’t be too angry 

Going to stand up, he barely managed to say, “Yeah?” before his father struck him, Joonmyeon stumbling into the wall, a blinding, shocking pain running through him. 

“Next time, you don’t disappear like that.” The man spoke, a low growl underlying his normal voice. 

He whimpered, but apparently his father had gotten what he wanted off of his chest, so he walked back into the house without waiting for a word in return. 

Joonmyeon stood there for a few long beats, but his shock couldn’t keep his fear from rushing back, and he slid his shoes on, not bothering to tie them in his hurry to leave his house. The spot on his jaw where he had been struck throbbed like a second, awful heartbeat, and he had to fight to keep from crying again. Now that he wasn’t in the shower, his bloodshot eyes and sticky face would be all too obvious to his classmates. 

The day at school surprised him not at all because he didn’t break down, but because everything sort of drifted senselessly around him. After the initial panic, then quiet resignation when he realized the mark didn’t look like someone had struck him, he settled down into his desk and pretended to take notes, doodling little creations in between his math equations, making his English words bleed when sudden bouts of rage seized him. Otherwise his drawings were of little dark creatures full of sharp teeth and giddy eyes, bloated on the darkness that he left in his angry pen strokes. No one asked, and it wasn’t like he had the kind of friends that would look closely enough at him to realize that something was wrong. 

That more than anything else made him suddenly crave Lu Han’s presence like he hadn’t before, the world shimmering around him like a heated road in the summer time. It was like a caffeine addiction, noticed only when he couldn’t function in the early mornings, never missed until the pain started. He didn’t know much about the other, but he was the only one thus far that put forth any amount of effort toward him. 

Blinking rapidly at that realization, not really believing he would cry, but needing to pretend that his emotions worked like a normal person’s, he got through the school day like a ghost. To think once he had been proud that the others left him alone; most in his position were the victims of bullies, but everyone left him alone. Joonmyeon compared himself to furniture most days, but truth be told, most adults he knew were careful enough with money to not own a piece of furniture that went unused. More than anything, he felt like something someone discarded on accident, but was unimportant enough that they never went back for him. 

Uncaring of the consequences, he went straight to the cave after school, trying to ignore how his heart rate increased at the thought of seeing Lu Han. It wasn’t so much that he enjoyed spending time with him that much, as he really didn’t know anything about the other, but he was the first in a long time that had opened up the possibility, and he found himself wanting with a desperation that would make him blush if he had anything else to compare the emotion to. 

When he reached the cave, he went inside, not bothering to kick his shoes off, and he looked toward his pile of pillows, dismayed that the mud stains were still there, though of course Lu Han couldn’t take home stolen pillows to wash. 

Sighing heavily, he moved to settle down on them, staring at the wall, musing that he could do quite a bit to brighten the place up if he had some chalk. 

At some point, he began sketching what popped into his mind, jagged flowers blooming at the bottom of his page, before he started the centerpiece: A tall, thin figure with a soft smile and softer eyes. 

He was working on the curve of Lu Han’s bottom lip when said boy appeared, the blanket at the entrance being pulled aside. 

“Joonmyeon,” the voice sounded warm, a tad worried, but mostly content, “I was hoping I’d get to see you today.” 

He had to bite back the tears that wanted to come then, when nothing else would bring them up, and he forced a smile in his direction. Before he could say anything, though, Lu Han’s features morphed into a slightly pinched frown. 

“What?” Joonmyeon asked, glancing up, like he would see a spider dangling right over him. 

Instead of answering, Lu Han came right over to crouch in front of him, staring like he had the day before, but instead of reaching out to stroke through his hair, his hand came to cradle his cheek. 

Joonmyeon winced at the contact, and he assumed the bruise had come in nicely, his companion asking, “What happened?” 

He shrugged, glancing away, but Lu Han’s fingers on his jaw brought his gaze back up to meet the other’s, and he found himself saying, “It was…my dad.” 

Lu Han pursed his lips, expression turning conflicted. “Seriously? I thought you said your mom was back?” 

Joonmyeon looked down. “I guess their last fight changed something. I’m not sure what, but I probably shouldn’t risk staying up here too much longer.” He couldn’t say any more, disgusted with himself that he could normalize his father hitting him once into something that likely had to happen again. 

Lu Han’s fingers ghosted lightly over his skin, before his hand dropped, and he asked, “You wouldn’t want to say anything to anyone?” 

The silence that met his words told him enough, so he tried again: “You can’t defend yourself? Like you did with me that day?” 

His mind flashed back to the baseball bat, the heavy thunk of wood hitting bone, bone hitting floor, and he shook his head, even as a part of him held on to the image. 

“If I missed, or even if I hit him, I doubt it would stop him.” Joonmyeon murmured, hating how quiet his voice sounded, “It might just make him angrier.” 

Something ugly flashed over Lu Han’s face, and an embarrassed warmth spread in his stomach; happy, amazed that someone cared, yet shamed because he couldn’t take care of it himself. 

“I wish I could go home with you.” He said instead, hoping it wouldn’t seem too forward. 

Lu Han looked at him then, looking like he wanted to say something, though he ended up just chuckling, looking away. “I wish things were different.” 

\-- 

He lied when Lu Han asked him about his new drawings—how he had never had the funds or desire to use colors, but now reds and browns were splotched across the pages predominantly, overlapping prior grays and blacks. Colored pencils took layering and time, but they took him to this blissful, feverish place, different than the dullness he felt when he used just his pencils. 

He told him the images of blood came from dreams, that he pushed them out here so he didn’t have to think about them, but that wasn’t exactly true: They came from _day_ dreams, not the ones he couldn’t control. Joonmyeon never dreamed at night anymore, not when fear kept him from truly sinking. 

It was during school, during the awful hours of numbers and English that he thought of the words, slashed feverishly in the margins of his notes: 피, blood, _blood_ —it looked so damn cool in English. Both languages had the slashing letters, but unlike his mother tongue, the ‘O’s seemed to mimic the way even the smallest cuts had blood bubbling up, oozing from the slashed skin, the last ‘o’ shape being ended with another line. His hand shook with strange pleasure when he wrote the word with a red pen, then started shading to make the paper around it look like skin. 

Lu Han saw it; he hated that the boy didn’t seem to consider that his drawings were private, but it was either leave it there, or risk his father finding it. No one else had ever cared enough about his drawings to snoop, so he bit back the natural discomfort he felt when the other showed him a page he particularly liked. It felt like the other was inspecting him beneath a microscope, seeing all of the parts of him that he tried to hide from the majority. 

“What’s this?” 

Joonmyeon hated that question, if only because he never had a satisfactory answer to give the other. “It’s…” 

“Blood, I can tell. Like a cut wrist. But _why?”_ He sounded fascinated, which made the knot in Joonmyeon’s stomach uncoil a bit. 

“Well, I just liked the way the letters fit the meaning of the word in both languages.” 

“You seem to like English a bit more.” Lu Han teased. 

Warmth bloomed in him at how well the other understood him. “It’s cool, right?” He proceeded to tell the other his explanation. 

Lu Han nodded along as he spoke, but he seemed to be considering something, so that at the very end of Joonmyeon’s explanation, he asked, “What?” 

“What do you mean ‘what’?” Lu Han asked. 

“What’s with the face?” 

A pause. “I think I have an idea. If you’re open to inspiration.” 

Joonmyeon frowned at the strange subject change, but it wasn’t like he had a specific reason to turn down the offer, and Lu Han might have been struck by a sudden great idea. It wasn’t like that had never happened to him. 

“Alright? What is it?” 

Lu Han dropped to his knees, grabbing for his own bag, but his fingers hesitated on the zipper. “Do you have to be home soon?” 

“For dinner, yeah.” 

“Can you come back after?” 

Joonmyeon thought about it, but he was already invested, curiosity piqued. “I’ll make something up. Are you going to eat, too?” 

Lu Han looked startled at the question, shrugged, “If I feel like it.” Out of all of the things they brought to the cave, neither brought food, as the idea of a wild animal getting to it made them both feel gross. It didn’t matter if something small found the cave, it wasn’t like it was a real house, and they could chase off anything that decided it liked the cave. Joonmyeon had discovered the day a chipmunk had found its way to their pillows that Lu Han didn’t have a weak stomach like he did. 

“I’ll be back.” Joonmyeon announced, almost like the words needed to hit air for the promise to be solid. 

He went to leave, stepping out onto the narrow path, eyes drifting over the sparse undergrowth, vaguely grateful for the tangled plants that still hid his motions when the sun went down. Going during the week after school, the light was dim enough that he’d started having to use his cell phone’s flashlight to make sure he didn’t step anywhere slippery, but he was confident that no one would follow him in the dark anyway. 

Dinner was its usual tense affair; it tasted amazing, but he had to eat slowly, methodically, like he was contemplating his life over his bowl of ox bone soup. His father would grow angry if he finished before them, and “wasting food” also wasn’t an option. 

They talked sometimes, now. If his father initiated it. Thankfully that night brought a lot of silence, his father seeming too occupied with slurping his soup, though he didn’t miss how his mother’s upper lip curled at the sound. Once she would have reprimanded him, but now she held her tongue, afraid of the reaction. 

Joonmyeon’s vision flickered and suddenly he was seeing animals; two beasts with slit pupils and barely concealed teeth that could rip your throat out. Blood flickered at the corners of his vision, like their food had scattered droplets everywhere. He thought it would make him feel sick, but he finished his meal without much reaction to the vision, even though when his mother grimaced, he swore he still saw the tips of sharp teeth hidden just behind her frowns. 

When he finished, he rose to clean off his bowl and spoon, scraping the food waste into the proper bin, before placing his dishes into the cupboard. 

Grabbing his bag, his father asked, voice thick with warning, “Where are you going, Joonmyeon?” 

He made sure he didn’t stiffen up. “I’m going to study with a group at the library.” 

His father’s silence had him turning around, clearly weighing to see if the words were believable. 

“Your curfew is ten.” Joonmyeon could have deflated with relief, but he merely inclined his head respectfully before leaving once more, wishing that he never had to return. 

\-- 

When he got back to the cave, he recoiled when he entered, hand raising to his nose like he could somehow block the scent. 

“What the hell,” he choked, seeing Lu Han lounging on the pillows, “Did a skunk get in when you were gone?” 

“Maybe,” the boy drawled, and only then did Joonmyeon notice the strangely rolled cigarette in his hand, “I dunno.” 

“You smoke?” Joonmyeon blinked, somehow surprised, yet not. They had never brought anything like that to the cave before, and Lu Han had never struck him as one of those boys that would stand on the toilet seats in school so the smoke would go out through the vents. 

“Sometimes.” A naughty smile curled at the corners of Lu Han’s lips as he gestured for him to sit next to him, “And you can, too. I brought to share.” 

Joonmyeon sank down next to him, fascinated by the delicate curl of smoke that wafted off of the tip of the cigarette. “How did you get it?” 

He shrugged, “A friend. Here, you know how to inhale?” 

Not wanting to seem stupid, he blushed as he shook his head no. Even as Lu Han explained it, that didn’t keep him from nearly coughing a lung out when he tried to hold the smoke in. 

“Good, you got that out of the way,” Lu Han seemed pleased, his words oozing slowly from his lips, “Now, try again. Until you get it right.” 

The scent of skunk grew stronger and stronger, until Joonmyeon swore the smoke swirled around them into mushroom clouds, little explosions that carved out the wall, leaving little mice and bats dead in the crevices. He inhaled and inhaled but never felt anything beyond discomfort, and then the cigarette had burned down to his fingers. 

Lu Han reached out to take the last inhale, slumping back against the pillows pleasantly. 

“How do you feel?” Joonmyeon found himself asking. 

His companion just peered up at him through his bangs, and Joonmyeon saw compound eyes twinkling in the low light, lips cherry red. 

His breath caught in his throat, and Lu Han grinned, “Sorry. You never get high your first time. But at least you learned how to inhale.” 

Joonmyeon watched for sharp teeth, only answering when he saw no trace of entrails in his normal, blunt, human teeth. “High? I thought cigarettes didn’t get you high.” 

Lu Han threw his head back, though it lolled more than snapped, and his laugh huffed in and out of him, slowed, like someone hit fast forward on a paused YouTube video. 

“Oh, Joon,” he chuckled, only able to repeat, “Oh, Joon.” 

From that point on Lu Han didn’t make much sense, but that made him comfortable company until Joonmyeon had to go home. At that moment, his sluggish friend rolled off of the pillows, and grabbed a bottle of cheap perfume he had snagged from a Tonymoly a few days back. 

“Here.” He started to spray it over Joonmyeon, who gagged, trying to get away, though he knew the scent had to be masked. 

When his father asked why he smelled like that, he muttered a reply that one of his friends wore too much of his father’s cologne. 

In a past life, that would have made his dad laugh, but the man merely stared at him as he went to the bathroom, then to bed. 

\-- 

The second time Lu Han offered him the funny smelling not-cigarette, it hit him. 

Joonmyeon didn’t notice it until after the fact, when he tried to think of what he had done that night, and realized that he had stared at his hands, the way the muscle rippled under the thin membrane of skin, little people and impulses hidden under his outer covering. 

Everything was funny; Lu Han especially. That night, he only looked away from his hands to stare at the other, taking in how he tended to nibble on his lower lip when he smoked, how his body unfurled like an umbrella in a windstorm. 

He could have spent all night analyzing him, the way his long limbs stretched and pulled, attached tightly at the joints, skin sagging and pulling like chewed gum—though sickness passed through him at that specific comparison. 

People might leave him, but he would never treat someone, much less Lu Han, like chewing gum. 

The weed changed things for him; not substantially, but his life grew notably easier to bear, even as his parents gutted each other night after night, even as he came to the cave with more bruises that he hid under scarves and concealer that he had stolen from a Nature Republic. He had something to bear most of the burden, something that he knew could make him smile and laugh when fear occupied his thoughts for the rest of the time. 

One day, it beginning to get too cold to come out so far, he sat with Lu Han in their cave, smoking while wrapped up in varying blankets for warmth, when he admitted that he wondered what day his father would finally push too far and kill him. 

It seemed like normal musing, but Lu Han went silent for what felt like ages, and he turned his head to peer at the other, uncomfortable with the lack of talk. 

“What?” 

Lu Han shook his head. “I can’t believe you said that.” His voice sounded accusatory, “He wouldn’t kill you.” 

Beneath that, Joonmyeon thought he heard fear. “Maybe not.” He acquiesced, “I mean, murder is a bit…you know, murder-y.” 

Both of them lost it at that, and the moment was forgotten for the time being, though it came up again just a few days later, when Joonmyeon arrived late to the cave, limping heavily on one leg. 

“Shit,” Lu Han shot up before he could stop him, making his way over to the other, “What happened?” 

Joonmyeon waved him off and went to sink down on the pillows, smiling weakly like he was trying to reassure him. “Nothing, nothing, just fell earlier, you know.” 

He didn’t have to look up to know how angry that made Lu Han. “You just used the ‘my dog ate my homework’ of domestic abuse.” Joonmyeon flinched at the last two words. “Let me see it.” 

When Joonmyeon didn’t move, he begged softly, “Please, I just want to make sure nothing’s broken.” 

The concern in his voice and eyes had Joonmyeon blushing faintly, and he went to draw his pant leg up, wincing a bit at how bruised the skin already looked, a large purple circle beginning to form on his upper calf. 

Lu Han seemed to relax a bit, his hands going to lightly circle the area. “Nothing feels out of place. It’s probably just a bad bruise, maybe a muscle bruise.” 

Joonmyeon sighed then, as well. “Told you so.” 

“Well, what was I supposed to think?” Lu Han frowned at him, “You say you think he’s going to kill you one of these days, and you come up here looking like you ran away from him.” 

They both froze when the implication came back, Joonmyeon clearing his throat to say, “Anyway, isn’t weed a good painkiller?” 

Lu Han nodded, feeling far too awkward to say anything else, and they got down to smoking—but that wasn’t the last incident by a long shot. 

Bruises cropped up like pigeons to a picnic, and the next week Joonmyeon had started to flinch whenever Lu Han would move suddenly. He stopped seeming like a person, and looked more like a rabbit, afraid of the hawk that could be lurking just about anywhere. 

That time, when they got high, Lu Han said, “God, I wish someone would just put him in his place.” 

They were quiet for a beat, before Joonmyeon agreed, sighing, “It would be so much easier if he just left…” But that wasn’t what Lu Han meant, and he let the other know. 

“No, I mean, if you taught him a lesson.” Lu Han’s voice had steel running through it, like the weed wasn’t working, “Like if you waited for him to come home one night, and bashed his head in. Then he couldn’t retaliate.” 

Joonmyeon’s gaze rose to the darkness of the cave wall, imagining they were the walls of his house, seeing a baseball bat fly through the air, blood and gristle staining the wall, his swings growing more desperate as his father gurgled on the floor beneath him— 

He sucked in a horrified breath, that he allowed himself to think something so graphic, but Lu Han wasn’t done. 

“Imagine,” he purred, sounding like he relished the idea, “If you managed to tie him up, you could hit him as many times as he hit you. You could piss on him, cut off his dick and all he could do is cry! ‘Oh please son … You weren’t supposed to hit back!’ And you could tell him exactly how horrible he is, how much he’s what’s gone wrong in your life and his…” 

It sounded so good, Joonmyeon had to close his eyes, thinking of all of the righteous things he could yell at the man that had helped make him. 

“Then you’d be safe.” Lu Han murmured, and the gentleness with which he pronounced that had Joonmyeon’s heart swooping in his chest. 

“God, I wish.” He whispered under his breath. “I would…I want him to go away and never come back.” 

Lu Han went quiet for a moment, then asked, “Does he still drink a lot? Like, does he pass out, or get clumsy?” 

Joonmyeon thought about it, “Yeah, but that’s usually while I’m here. I try to stay out of the house while he’s like that.” 

“You could stick around one night,” Lu Han replied, “And when he’s really gone, get around him, tie him up—” 

“If he’s awake, I’d never be strong enough.” Joonmyeon sighed, not sure why he was playing around with this sick game, but knowing he had started to feel better. 

“Then maybe…does he ever ask you to bring him beer?” 

Joonmyeon nodded, and he continued, “You could crush a few sleeping pills to put into his drink. Once he’s out, you could tie him up.” 

The quiet that settled over them that time was filled with dark implication, a force wrapping its fist around Joonmyeon’s lungs. 

Lu Han seemed to sense that, because he offered, “And once you secure him, you could call me. We could figure it out together.” 

That sounded so good; he shuffled closer to the other, cautiously rested his head on Lu Han’s shoulder, and nearly let out a little sob when the boy didn’t move away. Instead, his head turned and his lips brushed his temple. “Tomorrow. No time like the present.” 

Joonmyeon had no time to argue about all of the reasons that they shouldn’t go forward with their plan—all he felt was the anger, the pain, and the helplessness that made him feel like less of a person. 

“Okay,” he whispered, hating himself for a moment, until the phantom vision of spilled blood on the cave wall came back to him, the droplets racing toward the floor like they didn’t have much time left. 

\-- 

The next night, he got lucky; his mother had left earlier in the day to go visit his grandparents, who rarely wanted to see him, as he reminded them too much of the awful man their daughter had married against their wills. 

He merely nodded, not looking at her when she told him, faint apology in her eyes, though he didn’t want to see it. Why should he play the sadist, when he knew they didn’t like him, and he knew that her being sorry wouldn’t change that? Instead he told her he would stay in that night, and he would cook if she didn’t have time. 

She seemed surprised, but kissed his forehead, calling him a good son, before leaving, and he set his plan into action. 

Instead of waiting for the man to drink, he crushed a ton of sleeping pills into the man’s _bibimbap_ , hoping it would mix enough with the sauce that he wouldn’t notice. He usually ate everything off his plate, so that should be enough to put him under. 

When the man came home and saw he was cooking, he grunted, “Where’s your mother?” 

Joonmyeon told him, and he shook his head. “Never thinks to take us anywhere. Women, eh?” 

Confused by the inclusion, Joonmyeon only nodded his cautious assent, as the man announced he would be seated in front of the television until the food would be ready. 

Assuring him it would be soon, as they only had to wait for the rice to finish up, so he could assemble their bowls, Joonmyeon looked at the sauce, pleased with how well the pills had integrated. 

After putting the bowls together, he set the table, pouring water into a carafe in case either of them got thirsty during dinner, and then waited for a commercial to call his father into the kitchen, knowing that interrupting a program was a good way to get hit. 

His father clicked the television off and came in, nodding at the offering. “Looks good. We’ll have to get rid of your mother, if you can do everything she does.” He laughed, and Joonmyeon laughed weakly along, not wanting to risk upsetting him. 

They ate in relative peace, Joonmyeon keeping his eyes downcast like he normally did, though he had to fight not to check his phone—he told Lu Han about the change of plan, and how the pills went into the man’s _bibimbap_. 

After a certain point, he noticed his father’s head bobbing a bit, and when he looked up, the man looked like he was struggling to stay awake. 

“The hell, I’m so tired.” His head went to raise to look at Joonmyeon, and he found that he couldn’t quite manage it. “Is it…did you do this? You little shit…” 

Joonmyeon sat there, wanting to announce his purposes, but he held his breath, waiting for the ultimate moment that his father would go unconscious into his bowl, with the still-hot bowl burning into his face, leaving mottled shapes over the flesh. 

But after a moment, his father staggered to his feet, face flushed red with rage. “You drugged your father? Your own father? What was in it?” He swayed as he moved toward Joonmyeon, arm accidentally knocking one of the heavy bowls off of the table and onto the floor, spilling his vegetables and rice everywhere. “You little shit…” He reached out to grab his son, but for once, Joonmyeon had the advantage. 

Stumbling back, kicking his chair out of the way, Joonmyeon yelled, “I’m tired of you hitting me! I don’t deserve it!” 

The man seemed surprised; his child usually never raised his voice, but all it ultimately did was bring a mean smile to his lips. “Kids always think they know best. It raises character, it teaches respect, which you and your mother obviously don’t have. What did you have planned, were you going to kill me afterward?” 

Joonmyeon couldn’t say anything, couldn’t breathe at the look in his father’s eyes, like tonight would be the night of someone’s death—just not his own. 

Before he could give himself away, he raced toward the back door, yanking open the screen and door. He had left them both unlocked already, for when Lu Han would ultimately show up, so he used them as his getaway now. 

“Oh no,” yelled his father, “You can’t run away to your little hideout this time!” 

Joonmyeon ran for the mountain, feeling his father following him, sensing the danger he was in, fear like a small animal in his stomach, clawing him up, lacerating his organs in its desire to flee. It thought Joonmyeon was done for, and frankly he thought so, as well. 

If he was going to die, it would be in his happy place. 

Racing for his mountain, slow with his injured leg, he never got far enough that he felt safe, feeling like his father was behind him, hearing his footsteps. He could have lost him if his leg hadn’t been hurt, but he had no choice. 

When he reached the path, he staggered up it, not anticipating how difficult the uphill slope would be on him, his father leering at him as he climbed the steps. 

“Joonmyeon, this has gone on long enough,” he called out, voice horribly reasonable sounding, so that anyone around would have no doubts as to who was in the wrong. 

He stumbled off of the path toward his cave, knowing that if he could get to it, that he could hide, could maybe even swing his baseball bat and get a good hit in. 

However, when he got to the slippery position of path, his legs suddenly went out from under him, and he felt something give, Joonmyeon going down onto the muddy path, hard. 

When he tried to get up, he found his ankle wouldn’t support him, and he sobbed out, his father approaching him, his belt out of its loops and wrapped around his fist as he stared down at his son. 

“A pity,” he shook his head, “if your leg wasn’t hurt, maybe you would have actually gotten away.” 

Joonmyeon wanted to throw the action in his face, show him what a terrible father he was, but the pain beat through him in steady stab, and he could only whimper in fear. 

“I’m going to have to teach you a lesson.” The father informed him, “You behaved badly. I can’t tolerate that.” Unravelling his belt, he snapped it toward Joonmyeon, the side without the buckle snapping against his arm and ripping out a cry of pain. 

“Here, you’re not in a good position for this,” his father spoke, trying to sound comforting, the man bending over, “Turn onto your back.” When Joonmyeon stared angrily up at him, he went down to forcibly flip Joonmyeon, hand going to grab the boy’s neck when he went to struggle. 

“There, there, I’m sorry, son. You didn’t get the discipline you needed when you were younger.” 

Joonmyeon thought about scrambling forward, but he knew he couldn’t get up fast enough to stumble away, on one good leg. This might really be the end. 

“That will cha—” 

A sickening crack, and then suddenly he heard something heavy hit the soft mud, Joonmyeon wondering if the pain was so terrible that he was listening to his punishment from somewhere outside his body. 

Then a hand came in front of his face, the fingertips stained with red, a familiar face posed above him, Lu Han’s eyes wild. 

“Joonmyeon, let’s go.” He begged. 

“I can’t,” Joonmyeon murmured, “My ankle…” 

Lu Han shook his head. “Take my hand, I’ll brace you.” 

Obeying, he found himself leaning on his good leg, his bruised left leg and twisted ankle throbbing in double time on his other leg. 

He looked down at his father, sprawled out on the ground, a cut on the top of his head from where Lu Han hit him bleeding profusely into his hair, so that it had begun to drip onto the ground. 

“How did you know I was here?” Joonmyeon asked softly, eyes unable to move from the blankness of his father’s unconscious face. 

“When you text me about the _bibimbap_ , I tried to warn you not to do it,” Lu Han sighed, “It’s twice as effective with alcohol, so I knew the amount you had wouldn’t do enough. You didn’t reply, so I got over here as fast as I could.” 

A moment passed, and Lu Han told him, gently, “I don’t think I killed him.” 

“Damn,” Joonmyeon swore, his expression settling into dark lines, “Should I hit him some more, then?” The idea of his father’s skull caved in came back to mind, the shards of his skull and the pink of his brain visible to the air. 

“Even better,” he looked over at Lu Han, and the boy’s eyes gleamed in the low light, “You could push him over the hill, and it will look like he fell and hit his head.” 

The fear Joonmyeon had felt festering in his chest writhed with hatred. No one should have to worry like this for their life, especially in regards to their own parents. He didn’t stop to wonder why Lu Han didn’t just push him, and instead asked, “Can you help me move?” 

Lu Han didn’t even hesitate to nod, shifting them both immediately, and Joonmyeon’s attention moved to the pathetic man on the ground, wishing they lived in a world where he could take true vengeance for the horrible things that man had done to him. He wished he could gouge out his eyes and feed them to him, dump him in a cess pit after cutting off his arms and legs, burning his ears. 

He felt Lu Han glance at him, likely wondering what he was waiting for, and his father stirred. In that moment, his emotions rose like a snake about to strike, and when Lu Han hissed, “Joonmyeon, do it now!” he staggered forward and knelt down onto his knees, shoving the man so he skidded, then began to fall down the hillside, hitting rocks and trees, not stopping until he reached the steepest part, and he dropped down, out of sight. 

“He deserved worse.” Joonmyeon whispered, before the adrenaline and fear truly caught up to him, and he started bawling from his position on the ground, staring at the blood that had smeared into the dirt, barely visible in the dimming light. 

“Do you believe in reincarnation?” Lu Han asked, settling next to him. “Because someone with a life like that is doomed to be reborn to something horrible. And if you believe in Hell, he’ll go there. Whichever belief system is correct; his suffering has only just begun.” 

Joonmyeon glanced over at his friend, and then reached out to embrace him tightly, uncaring if they never really touched like that previously, needing his comfort, needing the touch of someone else, someone who cared. 

Lu Han hugged him back gingerly, and Joonmyeon just cried into his chest until they were both stiff from the cold. 

\-- 

Mr. Kim was reported missing three days from then, when his mother finally called his work and heard he hadn’t come in for two days. Joonmyeon could sense the excitement in her; maybe he had finally gone away and would leave them to their lives. Maybe she could finally move on from that horrible man. 

Within the day they found him, and miraculously he was alive—in a coma, but alive. 

Joonmyeon hid his shock behind blank expressions, trying to hide his injuries from his mother, but she had noticed the same day she reported her husband as missing. 

Taking him to the hospital, he got a cast put on his foot, the nurses scrutinizing his variety of bruises that he hadn’t had time to hide. They asked his mother, but she shrugged, saying he probably got the bruises from the sports he played. Joonmyeon followed her lead and lied, though he hated himself for it, too focused on his father. 

When his father would wake up, he would go to jail, or worse—his life would be ruined either way. He would be seen as the son that tried to murder his father, and no one would pity him. 

Texting Lu Han, they agreed to meet in Namsan Park, too worried to pass the spot where they had struggled with his father. 

When they arrived, they moved to settle on a bench away from other sightseers and foreigners, Lu Han muttering to him, “There’s no way your mom would back up your self-defense claim, is there?” 

Joonmyeon hadn’t even thought of claiming that, but he paused. “She might. I think she hates him more than me…” 

“But what about the sleeping pills they found in his system?” Lu Han pressed, “That shows you planned it ahead of time, no matter how it went. People are probably already asking questions about you getting injured around the same time.” 

Panic welled up in him. “I can claim I don’t know why he has sleeping pills in his system. Or I can say that I put them in to try to keep him calm while I was alone in the house. Then he freaked out and threatened me with death. They couldn’t put me in jail for that.” 

“You still drugged him.” Lu Han reminded him, an arm wrapping around him. “Breathe. The odds of him waking up decrease with every day that goes past.” 

But Joonmyeon couldn’t calm down; the doctors said that the trauma was keeping him in the coma, not brain damage. If the man ever woke up, he would blame his son in a heartbeat. 

“What do I do?” He whispered to the other, curling up against him. “I didn’t—I just wanted to stop being afraid all of the time.” 

Lu Han hummed sympathetically, rubbing his back. “I know you’re in the right. He deserved it. Just remember that.” 

They sat there like that for a while, until they started getting strange looks from people that passed by. 

That night, at the suggestion Lu Han sent him, he opened one of his father’s bottles of beer, chugging the disgusting liquid, as it reacted with his painkillers and sent him flying up into the stratosphere, unafraid of his father or consequences. 

He could see the world, his house a little bloody blip on his radar that he dared not focus on, and he toured the world from above, watching eviscerated bodies raise up from graveyards, blood run from prisons and battlefields, grinning skulls attack the living, attempting to pull them to pieces. None of it scared Joonmyeon anymore; he felt like he was above it all, safe from it all. 

Every night his conscience tried to get the better of him, he drank and had a painkiller, claiming to his mother that his ankle hurt so badly that he would definitely need a refill, something to boost the beer that she didn’t seem to notice slowly diminishing in their fridge. 

The first time Lu Han suggested they return to the cave, he had a beer and a painkiller first, though he could largely walk with his foot in a boot, no problem. Joonmyeon didn’t want to even consider the word ‘addiction,’ as he thought he wouldn’t have much more time in the world unbothered, but when he reached the path where his father was hit and fell, he laid down in the mud and started making snow angels. 

“The witch is dead, the witch is dead,” he sang softly, “Except not because he’s in a coma! He should be dead!” 

He laughed at his own antics, unable to worry about Lu Han waiting for him. As he stared straight up at the sky, he ignored the trees, as he had gotten used to seeing faces in their twisted bark. 

On his way up, the twisted, rat-gnawed face of his father stared accusingly at him from the trunks. Joonmyeon had waved the first time, but after that, the expressions grew gradually more bloated and he found he didn’t want to talk to them anymore. 

Joonmyeon twisted over onto his hands and knees, and he cried out more forcefully, “Why didn’t you just die? Why are you here? The witch is supposed to die; the hero is supposed to win! It’s not murder if the bad guy dies!” 

The next thing he knew, he was sitting up on the ground, Lu Han kneeling next to him. 

“Are you alright?” He asked, and the shadows the moonlight threw across his face gave him a bloody, widened, Joker smile. Joonmyeon badly wanted to kiss him. 

“He needs to die.” Joonmyeon whispered to him. 

Lu Han frowned sympathetically, “Can you get up, Joon?” 

They rose together to their feet, and he wrapped an arm around the man’s waist, gaze flickering over him, his pointed teeth sticking out past his pretty, perfect lips, and Joonmyeon sighed. 

“I wanted to kill him. I wanted him dead.” Joonmyeon replied, like he was talking about the weather. 

“You’re drunk.” Lu Han made a tutting noise, “Come to the cave.” 

Joonmyeon followed sluggishly, hopping a bit to compensate for his boot, and when they pushed inside, it felt so warm and welcoming that he stopped in the doorway, staring in. 

Lu Han glanced up at him, and Joonmyeon announced, “I’m going to pray every night until he’s dead. Dead as a doornail, dead as roadkill.” 

The other frowned at him, then asked, “Would you run him over with a car, if you could?” 

“I’d back over him,” Joonmyeon announced fiercely, “And then again and again, until he was paste on the road.” 

Lu Han’s eyes seemed to shine fiercely. “And if he was here right now?” 

Joonmyeon’s eyes went to the baseball bat, and he imagined embedding some nails into it. “I would beat him until his face looked like tomato paste.” 

They both shifted closer to each other. 

“And if that still didn’t kill him?” Lu Han asked, and it felt like the body laid somewhere in the shadows of the cave. 

Joonmyeon grabbed for him, taking his shoulders, too afraid of Lu Han running away, Lu Han leaving him after everything, alone in the cave with his thoughts that refused to stop or give him a moment of peace. No matter how much he wanted his father to be dead, he wasn’t, and he knew that. 

“I would strip him,” he breathed, a hand slipping down from his shoulder to rest over Lu Han’s heart, wanting to feel his life, their life, their presence compared to the isolation caused by the man that spent so many nights scaring him, leaving him fearing for his life. “I would take a garden rake down his chest and shred the skin until it got stuck in his ribs.” 

Lu Han let out a small noise, and then they moved together, lips meeting, both of them hesitating, before they knew they wouldn’t hurt each other, and then they tangled together, Joonmyeon’s legs parting as Lu Han stepped between them. 

They kissed harder then, and Joonmyeon whimpered when he felt that Lu Han was hard, not understanding how that was possible, unless he lost time in his talk, unless they had kissed for much longer than he had even realized. 

Pulling back, he continued, “But I would stop at his navel. I would dig the rake in, then rip out his stomach with my hands. I’ve always wanted to feel intestines in my hands.” 

Lu Han’s lips traced along his jawline, down his neck, and he murmured, breath sending shivers down his spine, “Is that so?” 

“Yeah,” Joonmyeon’s hands went to smooth down, then around to cling to the man, “I would pull them all out, like when you pull wrapping paper too far out, or when a child gets it and unravels it.” 

A hand pressed to the front of his pants, and Joonmyeon let out a small noise, reminiscent of a hiccup, the pleasure coming fast and hard with his panic. 

Lu Han cooed, “Let me take care of you. I might not let you play with my intestines, but my cock is much better, anyway.” 

Joonmyeon found himself nodding frantically, and they parted to drop their jackets, keeping their shirts on, though they both had to sit on the ground to pull Joonmyeon’s boot off. The period of delicately undoing the Velcro might have killed a lesser person’s arousal, but the desperation Joonmyeon felt for Lu Han pushed him forward, crawling on his knees and hands, ignoring how the cave wall seemed to hold the twisted faces of those trapped in the Earth, perhaps killed on those same hills that nearly took his father’s life. 

His lips fell clumsily onto Lu Han’s, and they kissed sloppily, Joonmyeon just a little desperate to bury himself in the other, hands pressing his full weight to the other. 

Lu Han seemed to know what he wanted, and he laid him down against the pillows, the heels of his feet on the cold floor, causing his injured foot to throb, though he ignored it. 

They worked together to remove Joonmyeon’s pants, Lu Han kicking his off after with no ceremony, his erection pressing up to his stomach with obvious arousal. He smirked when Joonmyeon licked his lips, and he went to fist his cock slowly, hand moving along it to give the other a moment to appreciate it. 

Joonmyeon felt like they were forgetting something heavily important, but the next thing he knew, Lu Han was kneeling next to him, a small bottle in his left hand, his right pressing below where his legs fit together. 

“Spread your legs,” Lu Han coaxed, voice sounding like cotton, like a childhood cap that would keep you safe from everything. Joonmyeon obeyed, and then blinked when he felt something press inside him. 

Lu Han stared at his face, and Joonmyeon smiled at him, the strange feeling not doing much for him, though it wasn’t like he minded it. 

He felt something else probe at his ass, then an additional stretch, and then Lu Han commented, “Your painkillers were probably a really good choice.” 

“Oh?” Joonmyeon blinked up at him, wiggling down against the feeling. 

Lu Han swore under his breath, and the feeling of stretch increased, making him feel full, like he was being joined with the other. 

Joonmyeon let out a little breath, and Lu Han nodded, before the feeling came again. At that count, he had to be three fingers in. He didn’t want to say it, but he hoped he would be able to feel when Lu Han ultimately entered him. 

Granted, just the feeling of being filled curled in his gut with pleasure, but Joonmyeon wanted more—so his hand went down to his cock, and he started to stroke over himself in time with the pressing of the fingers inside of himself. It felt so strange to know the person he trusted most in the world was _inside him,_ feeling him in a completely new way, feeling him where he was unbroken, never touched. 

Those thoughts more than anything else pushed him forward, and he nearly lost himself in the pleasure, though he knew he wasn’t ready to release yet. 

Lu Han didn’t know that, though, and he swatted his hand away, before he went to pour lube onto his cock. 

Joonmyeon watched, dazed and excited, the colors swimming and dark, with the reddish yellow tinting of their lights, and he reached up for Lu Han. 

“Joonmyeon,” the other spoke his name softly, “I’m gonna go in, alright?” 

He nodded, and then he felt the pressure withdraw, only for it to be replaced with something much larger. Lips parting, expecting pain, and pleasantly surprised when nothing really registered to him, he reached up to grab Lu Han’s shoulders, mostly enjoying the sensation, like he had with Lu Han’s fingers. 

“So tight,” Lu Han moaned out, eyes somewhere over Joonmyeon’s head, and the man laughed. 

“You’re in me,” Joonmyeon slurred, “You have a body part inside me.” 

Lu Han snorted, “God, you’re hard and you can barely feel this. Don’t tell me it was from hearing about your father?” 

Arousal thrummed through him at the thought of his father’s body, slumped at the bottom of the hill, broken like a discarded toy, bones ripping through the skin, which had gone a few shades darker from blood bubbling up under unbroken skin. 

Joonmyeon’s hand went down to his own arousal as Lu Han started to thrust inside of him. “I want to hear more.” 

“Yeah?” Joonmyeon felt so dazed, so excited, “Alright…” 

A moment passed with only wet sounds filling the air, the sound of Lu Han’s balls slapping against his ass registering to him in a distant way. 

“I’d save his eyes till last.” He decided. “Cut his nose off first so he could see more of what I’d do.” 

He saw Lu Han smirk above him, and he rushed to continue, “I’d tie him to the bottom of a car and go over speed bumps, so he could have the skin worn off of him bit by bit, with a little time to recover, though he would have no idea when the bumps would be coming. I’d go until there was nothing left to wear away.” 

Lu Han throbbed inside of him and his own hand closed more tightly around his arousal, adoring that sensation. 

“Lu Han…” he sobbed under his breath, “I’d crack his skull open and spoon his brains onto the ground, I’d step on them, squish them under my feet, so he could know how it feels to lose your future, your dignity—I’d take his pants off and carve a bad grade on his penis. I’d show him, I’d find a donkey to bite off his dick and let him watch a pig eat it.” 

Genital mutilation shouldn’t have been a topic during sex, but it pushed Lu Han harder inside of him, Joonmyeon’s body jolting on the pillows, his injured foot giving out, so he could only brace himself on the other. That would hurt like a bitch once he would get feeling back in his body, but at the moment, he could only focus on the sensation of them joining together, the sweat that stuck their clothes to their skin. 

“He is a pig,” Joonmyeon spat, trying to sound fierce, a moan finally being pulled from him as Lu Han rolled his hips, and the feeling started to come back, his cock feeling like it was opening him up, working him out in a way he always hungered to feel. “Disgusting, I would kill him over and over if I could.” 

“Yeah?” Lu Han bit out, “Then why isn’t he dead now?” 

“Because I didn’t want it to be done so soon!” Joonmyeon gasped out, hand working furiously over his cock, “I want to make him bleed, I want to make him suffer.” 

He imagined the man’s corpse hung on a meat hook above them, dripping blood onto both of them as they fornicated so viciously, and Joonmyeon saw stars above it all. 

“You’re going to murder him, the bastard deserves it.” 

“He does, I want to so badly—” Joonmyeon whimpered, accidentally clenching around the other. 

Before he knew what was happening, he felt something warm spill inside of him, and the crevices that Lu Han’s cock had been unable to fill now also felt completely enveloped. 

Joonmyeon let out a whimper, a wheeze as he realized what had just happened, his own hand struggling to catch up, body and mind overwhelmed with sensation. 

“We’re going to finish him off,” Lu Han vowed, then pulled out of him. 

In that moment, satisfaction filled him where the other left, and he found himself spilling over his hand, panting heavily as he thought about the hospital room he had already visited; going in with a knife to carve the man up just like he had wanted. He could finish it. 

Joonmyeon stared down at the white on his hand, seeing an abstract mess that might have told him his future if he so deigned to look. 

Instead, he wiped it on a pillow. 

\-- 

Joonmyeon stared down at the knife in his hand with a sick sense of dissociation, unable to believe that it was real, that he was doing this. 

The first time he had done so, Lu Han had just smiled at him encouragingly—but that was back in the cave. 

On the bus ride to the hospital, he had received a jab in the ribs so hearty that he saw stars for minutes afterward. He got it; nothing looked more suspicious than a young teenager carrying a sharpened kitchen knife on a pretty full bus. 

“You’re going to stab him once for your ankle,” Lu Han had whispered to him, voice beautiful in its vindictiveness, lips hot against his ear, “Once for your mom, ten times for you, ten times for every year you were miserable or sad. He’ll look like _bulgogi_ by the time you’re done with him.” 

Joonmyeon had thrived on the attention in the darkness, the viciousness, the anger someone else felt for the wrongs that had been done to him, but in the harsh light of day, he knew there was a million ways this could go wrong. 

“I’m going to go to jail,” he whispered to himself, so quietly that Lu Han turned his head to look at him, unable to hear him even though he was nearly pressed up against him. 

Hands found his stomach and hips, and he repressed a shiver, thinking of the future they had ahead of them. Or could have had ahead of them. 

The urge to cry welled up in him, but he could barely push it away before Lu Han was guiding him to the exit of the bus. 

On a whim, he hung back and dropped the knife into the gutter. He had spent most of the previous night googling different ways to do this, and while stabbing would feel the best, he doubted his stomach. Joonmyeon didn’t know if he had the heart to finish it after the first stab, when the mutilation became real, when his father’s body began spurting real red blood all over him. 

There was a better way, a clearer way. If it would leave less evidence. God, it wasn’t like he had ever done that before. 

Going into the hospital, he went to reception, barely feeling Lu Han behind his shoulder, like a shadow with the ability to breathe down his neck, hands fluttering nervously behind him like a caged bird, like Lu Han would kill his father himself from nerves. 

Joonmyeon approached reception and showed his ID, telling her he was there to visit his father, and the woman smiled at him as she signed him in, only seeing a filial son who wanted to check on his parent. 

Lu Han wasn’t allowed in, so he went to sit in the seating room, his touch brushing against Joonmyeon’s back, reminding him, soothing him, as he went to sit on his cellphone. 

Heart beat pounding through him like he had ran to the hospital, Joonmyeon fought to control his breathing, knowing the more nervous he looked for the cameras, the guiltier he would look to anyone who would later check the footage. 

Pushing his hands into his pockets, he tried to think of Lu Han’s face, the softness, the encouragement, the safety he felt in their cave. It had become theirs, instead of his, somewhere along the line, and he could no longer separate the feeling of safety from the other boy. 

Reaching the room, he knocked, then realized how pointless that was, before he pushed in, calling, “I’m here, dad.” Supposedly they could hear everything you said while in a coma, so he didn’t feel as foolish talking to him. 

“This is going to be the last time I see you.” He announced, following Lu Han’s plan. If he said it out loud, it was more likely to happen. “I’m not your son anymore.” 

His father didn’t even shift, but he took mental picture after picture of him, staring down at his shrunken form, thinking he couldn’t be that much of a threat anymore, even if he woke up. Joonmyeon waited for pity to come, but nothing welled up in his chest. He was the permanent fixture of fear, slight and angry, ready to fight for his right to keep existing, though he couldn’t even say he cared that much about existing. It was more that his father didn’t seem to care, and he would do anything to contest that. 

He found his nerve faster than he thought. 

“You’re an asshole.” Joonmyeon tried to put all of the anger he felt over the years into his voice, “And now you go to hell.” 

The words sounded weak, and he hated himself. Approaching the bed, he grabbed the pillow from behind his head, slid his father further down the bed, then settled the pillow over his nose and mouth, pressing with just enough pressure that he felt could be effective. 

After a few minutes of no flat lining, he pressed harder, waited, hating how sweat beaded over his body, sliding down his spine with the disgusting chill that reminded him of running for his life, ducking to avoid being beaten with bottles. 

Memories surged over him, and he pressed harder, hearing himself gurgle, hearing Lu Han in his ear, whispering, “He doesn’t deserve to live. You’re worth so much more than either of them. I think that makes it your right.” 

Red spots floated in Joonmyeon’s vision, and he found he had been holding his breath, almost experimenting to see how much oxygen he could go without himself. 

The machine began to flat line, and he let the pillow stay, going over to a chair on the side of the room to settle like he had fallen asleep. 

Nurses rushed into the room, but amazingly were unable to resuscitate him. He played the hysterical son well, tapping into his own shock and sickness when he saw his father as a body for the first time, minus one person. 

“I just fell asleep, I didn’t even notice he had shifted,” he babbled, eyes swinging around with panic. He had no idea if he had been too brutal, if there were bruises that would show, but he kept talking to anyone that would face him, begging them to save his father. 

The only thing he wouldn’t say was sorry. Because even if it had been an “accident,” there was only so much he would lie. 

At one point, he found that someone had taken him back to the lobby, given him a blanket and a drink for shock, and he saw Lu Han’s eyes on him. For some reason they burned darkly, and he swore he saw something in his expression that had him recoiling, like his father hadn’t left the world, and his mind twisted safety into the sin he had just committed. 

Joonmyeon froze like a rabbit in the gaze of a fox, and Lu Han turned to walk out of the hospital. 

\-- 

The day passed in a blur, his mother numb with shock, barely able to pay mind to him, too busy being a widow and attempting to figure out what to do about the body, the funeral. 

Joonmyeon welcomed the peace, though he had no idea what to do with it. 

He stayed home for the entire first day after the date of death, not wanting to look suspicious by running, but “day” quickly turned into “days” as he helped his mother deal with their relatives and prepare for the service. 

The service came and went; everyone thought it was an accident, and spoke to him kindly when they would see him. Joonmyeon didn’t even have to fake his distress: His dreams were haunted by endless woods, tortured faces locked into the bark, following him, screaming at him silently. He had broken the most sacred of bonds, and even though it had been his father’s fault, he had been the one to take that last step. 

Waking up in the middle of the night, he swore he saw the faces, swollen and ugly in his wall paper, in his windows, bloated eyes watching him from the shadows. 

Shaking hands found his cell phone and he texted Lu Han, telling him how badly he needed to see him, withholding his fear and the sinking sensation that his father’s death hadn’t been the end. 

When the services passed, he finally was able to return to the cave—only to find that most of their things had been torn though, the pillows laying shredded on the ground, his beautiful sketchbook laying open, pages ruined and swollen with water. 

Numb with anguish, wondering what that could mean, he sank to the ground, staring at the bloody letters, written with what looked like a sharpie: MURDERER. 

Flipping the page, he saw his drawings were flooded, the monsters and twisted faces melting into each other. There were no longer clear boundaries between the creatures and the pages, no division between his negative space and his evils. 

“Murderer.” He whispered, flipping through the pages, as if the monsters had killed his father, as if they had been born of his bruises and rage, and could come to life at his call. Joonmyeon hadn’t killed anyone, hadn’t felt the heavy presence that was a person slip away, like a snake shedding its skin. 

“What was I supposed to do?” 

Drawing out his phone, needing normalcy in the cavern that had once been his only safe space, he went to message Lu Han again, only to find [UNKNOWN] in the place where the other had been. 

He had blocked him. Was he disappointed that Joonmyeon had chickened out of stabbing his father? 

Sickness welled up in his chest, Joonmyeon feeling like he couldn’t move properly; he had no more escape plans, no way out from this. He had gotten away with it, but his mother paid him no more mind than she had those past weeks. And now Lu Han was gone. He didn’t even know where his house was to go demand answers. They had never needed any other place. 

Joonmyeon sat on the cave floor until the breeze coming through the ripped curtain turned freezing, the light having long since faded. In the dark, he swore he could imagine the bugs that would settle into their things, their collection, their home, the place that Joonmyeon had lost his virginity. 

Rising to his feet, he stumbled back and out of the cave, unable to even cry, feeling like the world had frozen around him, seared to razor sharp points, with the darkness waiting to swallow him whole. Only idiots thought they could find home in chaos. 

He stumbled through the woods, trying not to look at the trees, wondering why he couldn’t seem to see the lights from the city in the distance. 

The wind whipped through the piece of wilderness, cutting through his coat, and he increased his pace, ignoring the slippery leaves, biting back a whimper when the breeze seemed to wrap around him, drawing his breath out of him. 

Instead of going down, he found himself going up toward the park, not knowing his goal, but unable to return home to the looming absence of his father, the overwhelming lack of guilt that seemed it would split his head open. 

He climbed up, the wind buffeting him no matter which way he turned, and he sucked in breath after breath, fighting for his will to, though his emotions stuck in his chest like a bit of forgotten dinner. Joonmyeon couldn’t handle the climb well, but he didn’t feel the burn beyond the tightness in his chest. 

When he reached the top, he slumped over, trying to catch his breath even though he wondered what the point was, if getting his breath back would fix everything, take it all away. 

Part of him wanted to lay on the ground until the cold turned to warmth—not because he particularly wanted to die, but because he wanted to stop feeling for a while. He wanted to give up and be put through recycling, popped out into a new person, one with a life that had meaning to it, dreams and aspirations that would make living worth dealing with. 

Joonmyeon came to a stop in the perfect center of the park, staring out over the steps, up to the archway from the past, imagining the vibrant pops of color that its designs held. In the dark, it looked like any old piece of wood; dumb and dark and cut down for someone else’s purposes. 

Lurking around the side of it was a person, or something vaguely person-shaped, and Joonmyeon watched as it moved toward him. On a normal day, in a normal person’s life, that would have sent him running back the way he came, toward people and safety, but a normal person would never have come to the abandoned, isolated park this late at night anyway. 

Running was a remembered trait of a life he no longer would live, and so he stayed as the shape moved toward him, until the darkness pulled free of the boy. 

He looked at Lu Han, tracing the familiar shapes in their low lighting, wishing he could see his eyes even just a little bit. 

“You blocked me,” he began, startled a bit when his words came out as a whisper. “Why did you block me?” 

Lu Han shrugged, then went to turn away from him. Joonmyeon reached out to grab his wrist. 

“No, answer me! What was that? Why are you here?” He hated the desperation that damped his voice, “Please.” 

Silence met his words, and he surged forward, hands grasping at Lu Han’s shirt, eyes going wide as he tried to see, tried to make sure that he hadn’t imagined the other, or grabbed someone else in his place. “Talk to me! I killed my father! I killed him!” 

A laugh met his words. “Killed him? You killed him?” 

“I suffocated him!” Joonmyeon found himself shaking the other harder, tears welling up in his eyes, “I pressed a pillow over his mouth until he stopped breathing!” 

Lu Han’s teeth flashed in the low light, the boy smiling. “You’re so weak. You’re crying over the man that ruined your life. You couldn’t even kill him properly.” 

Joonmyeon recoiled. “I…he’s dead.” 

“Is he, though?” Lu Han brushed his hands off of him like they were dirt. “You’re telling me everything’s how it should be? Your mom is happy and loving, and you’re actually happy?” 

He couldn’t reply, too confused with the direction the conversation had gone—though of course Lu Han was right. 

“That’s what I thought.” Joonmyeon watched him turn to face the trees. “Your house is still miserable, right? Your mother is mourning someone who was awful to her son, awful to her, and the guilt is eating you alive. You’d have been better off if you’d have stabbed him.” Lu Han looked at him over his shoulder, “If you stab him, she could hate you, or protect you, and see it as an act of you getting someone poisonous out of their lives.” 

Joonmyeon stepped toward him, needing to touch, but Lu Han weaved out of his range as quickly as he moved. 

“If you would have killed him,” the boy continued like he had never stopped, “then you would be reveling in it now. You took a life, you enacted revenge on someone who harmed you. But instead you took the coward’s way, so he’s dead and it barely feels worth it, right? God, the people didn’t even think to do an autopsy, so you’re in the clear. Poor Joonmyeon, such a tragic thing to happen… You got away with it, but how does it feel?” 

Lu Han spread his arms. “I bet you feel like not a thing has changed.” 

The tears from earlier began to run down his cheeks, the cold biting at his dampened skin. “It hasn’t.” Of course Lu Han was right. “Everything is still miserable. I’m still miserable.” 

Joonmyeon surged forward then and grabbed for Lu Han’s waist, hugging him fiercely, hoping that would cause him to feel. When it didn’t, he opened his eyes and took in the trees that they had grown so close to, seeing the dead faces in the bark laughing at him. 

“If you had killed him properly, you wouldn’t be feeling this way.” Lu Han spoke softly, hands going to rest over Joonmyeon’s, “But of course you didn’t. His ghost, the evil man no one else would look at, gets to haunt you forever, now, as a martyr. Somehow I wonder if you could even kill yourself properly.” 

Pain shot through him at the brutality of the words. “I could.” 

“Then why haven’t you?” Lu Han’s voice was brusque. “You were excited at the thought of killing your father, but couldn’t manage it. It was the most reaction you had ever shown to anything. You wouldn’t even fuck me without thinking about mutilating him.” 

“That’s not—” 

“—so maybe you’ll be able to feel again.” Lu Han pulled free of him. “You know what they say. It always feels like flying before you hit the ground.” 

“You want me to jump off something?” Joonmyeon sounded horrified, but the boy just shook his head. 

“I’m saying it feels good. You feel alive the most in the moments before you die.” 

“I don’t want to die, though…” 

“Are you sure?” Lu Han turned to face him, and Joonmyeon saw his eyes gleaming in the dark, “Is that just the way you’ve been conditioned? Someone like you, someone obsessed with death, someone who can get off to the thought of shredding someone’s chest with a rake… That’s the real you, Joonmyeon. There’s nothing wrong with embracing it.” 

He wanted to argue, wanted to shout that he knew he had a better future for himself, but his drawings were ignored, he hated school, and everywhere he went, the trees with his dad’s faces stared at him, accusing and taunting all together. 

Maybe it would be better. 

Lu Han seemed to notice that something in his manner had changed, and he asked, “Would you like to fly, Joonmyeon?” 

Just once. “Yes.” 

\-- 

The lights were beautiful that time of night, almost making up for the fact that you couldn’t see the stars in Seoul. 

He hated Seoul more than anything else, hated the people that would put him in a box for his entire life and tell him that there was no other appropriate way to live. 

He hated the naïve sheep people it created, how they wandered through their lives like ghosts, caring about nothing, just doing because it felt right. You could cut them open, and they wouldn’t even bleed—not really. 

You could push a knife into their hand and they would see a way out, a means to an end. 

Joonmyeon knew he must look like a little shadow, a blip on the edge of a bridge where he stood on the railing, arms stiff at his sides because even after years and years, Joonmyeon was a puppet of other people’s desires and anger. ‘Love’ was a language not taught in his household, and though he could want Lu Han like a safety blanket, he wouldn’t shield him from the horrors of the world. 

“I want to fly,” he whispered, “Just once.” 

“Once is all it takes.” Lu Han replied. And Joonmyeon could think he had loved him once, he could think the faces would stop chasing him once he hit the water. 

A motion, and there was only one person left on the bridge. 

A splash, and Lu Han felt a rush of cold air bring a heady flush to his cheeks.

**Author's Note:**

> \- I feel really weird having written something so dark where the point of it was to be dark? ~~especially since I don't feel it was done very well~~


End file.
